I've posted in other threads about how we came to get the "newbies" when our friend passed away suddenly. We had told her we'd take any cats who might outlive her if she didn't survive her cancer, but honestly we expected that she had some years left and that someday we might be taking in an elder kitty or two, especially since two of them have IBD (and one wasn't doing well at all at the time) and one was 17….not only were we deeply saddened of course by our friend's very sudden passing, but a little shell-shocked that we would be taking in four cats, not one or two.
That first week, we had to scramble to provide a place for them where we could keep them separate from our three resident cats. Fortunately we had a room that was almost empty as I was moving my exercise equipment to another area of the house. The poor newbies had to be crammed into one room with all their 'stuff' for a few days until we could figure things out. Hubby quickly built on a little outside enclosure so they could get some fresh air but still, there wasn't much space to run around in.
The catio came about for several reasons:
--The bank behind the cat safe room was just dirt, we'd never landscaped it. There were drainage problems from a broken pipe so rainwater leaked into the exercise room in the winter.
--We live on a terraced hill and have retaining walls everywhere. Hubby had been wanting to reinforce the wall behind that bank for some time but it meant digging out literally tons of dirt and we just hadn't done it yet.
--We needed a new roof.
--We wanted to put in a rainwater collection system (we live in perpetual drought/water shortage country around here) which meant drilling a hole in the bank for a collection tank, which would then be pumped up to storage tanks higher up in the yard.
Then, as time went on, it became clear that a couple of our friend's cats and a couple of ours just were not going to be friends, or even tolerate each other. We went through several months of physical fights (the cats, not us LOL), stress, personality changes, etc. before we realized that maybe we would never have one big happy cat family and maybe the newbies needed their own space on a permanent basis.
There was the added complication that our three resident cats are indoor/outdoor cats. We have a cat door and they come and go as they please during the day. The newbies had been indoor cats all their lives, so even when a couple of the newbies did integrate into our household and had the run of the house, I worried that they'd eventually figure out what the cat door was all about and get out.
So….we decided to kill several birds with one stone and get a new roof, put in the rainwater tanks, shore up the retaining wall, AND build a catio for the newbies all at once. It's taken about three months and we still have some finishing touches but it's all pretty close to finished. The way it works now is that when somebody's home to keep an eye on them, newbies Travis and Molly can mingle with us and our cats while Hannah and Jake stay in their room/the catio. When we're gone, we put Molly and Travis in there, too, so we don't have to worry about them getting out the cat door.
We leave a window open in the cat room so the newbies can go up their ramp, out the window and onto a covered platform. If they turn left, they go down a covered tunnel to the litter box room (I want to get the litter boxes out of their sleeping/eating room and get them used to going outside to pee/poop). Beyond that is an open pit with aquarium gravel (which I learned about from susank521 here: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/265743/outdoor-potty). If they get used to using that during good weather, we may be able to reduce the overall number of litter boxes around our house! If the cats turn right from inside the covered platform, they go through a cat door down a ramp into the catio. The catio is a long narrow space and the floor space is already getting a bit crowded, but I think we'll be able to fit in a small solar waterfall in one corner and we want to attach some shelves/ramps on the walls so they can climb, see out, etc.
The newbies have only just been able to get out there the past 2-3 days so we're still experimenting with how it will all work and so far they are NOT getting the hang of how to use cat doors! They also tend to just stay in their room because they haven't gotten used to the idea that they have another whole space to be in. But they'll learn, I know. Also our cats climb up on the roof and check them out from the other side of the mesh, so I'm hoping that with more up close and personal encounters, Hannah and Jake (the two who don't get along with our three) will eventually cool it with the bad catitude toward our three. :-)
Here's a link to a slideshow of some of the journey: http://www.videosprout.com/video?id=608107cb-0835-4984-f018-0000d7d43df9
That first week, we had to scramble to provide a place for them where we could keep them separate from our three resident cats. Fortunately we had a room that was almost empty as I was moving my exercise equipment to another area of the house. The poor newbies had to be crammed into one room with all their 'stuff' for a few days until we could figure things out. Hubby quickly built on a little outside enclosure so they could get some fresh air but still, there wasn't much space to run around in.
The catio came about for several reasons:
--The bank behind the cat safe room was just dirt, we'd never landscaped it. There were drainage problems from a broken pipe so rainwater leaked into the exercise room in the winter.
--We live on a terraced hill and have retaining walls everywhere. Hubby had been wanting to reinforce the wall behind that bank for some time but it meant digging out literally tons of dirt and we just hadn't done it yet.
--We needed a new roof.
--We wanted to put in a rainwater collection system (we live in perpetual drought/water shortage country around here) which meant drilling a hole in the bank for a collection tank, which would then be pumped up to storage tanks higher up in the yard.
Then, as time went on, it became clear that a couple of our friend's cats and a couple of ours just were not going to be friends, or even tolerate each other. We went through several months of physical fights (the cats, not us LOL), stress, personality changes, etc. before we realized that maybe we would never have one big happy cat family and maybe the newbies needed their own space on a permanent basis.
There was the added complication that our three resident cats are indoor/outdoor cats. We have a cat door and they come and go as they please during the day. The newbies had been indoor cats all their lives, so even when a couple of the newbies did integrate into our household and had the run of the house, I worried that they'd eventually figure out what the cat door was all about and get out.
So….we decided to kill several birds with one stone and get a new roof, put in the rainwater tanks, shore up the retaining wall, AND build a catio for the newbies all at once. It's taken about three months and we still have some finishing touches but it's all pretty close to finished. The way it works now is that when somebody's home to keep an eye on them, newbies Travis and Molly can mingle with us and our cats while Hannah and Jake stay in their room/the catio. When we're gone, we put Molly and Travis in there, too, so we don't have to worry about them getting out the cat door.
We leave a window open in the cat room so the newbies can go up their ramp, out the window and onto a covered platform. If they turn left, they go down a covered tunnel to the litter box room (I want to get the litter boxes out of their sleeping/eating room and get them used to going outside to pee/poop). Beyond that is an open pit with aquarium gravel (which I learned about from susank521 here: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/265743/outdoor-potty). If they get used to using that during good weather, we may be able to reduce the overall number of litter boxes around our house! If the cats turn right from inside the covered platform, they go through a cat door down a ramp into the catio. The catio is a long narrow space and the floor space is already getting a bit crowded, but I think we'll be able to fit in a small solar waterfall in one corner and we want to attach some shelves/ramps on the walls so they can climb, see out, etc.
The newbies have only just been able to get out there the past 2-3 days so we're still experimenting with how it will all work and so far they are NOT getting the hang of how to use cat doors! They also tend to just stay in their room because they haven't gotten used to the idea that they have another whole space to be in. But they'll learn, I know. Also our cats climb up on the roof and check them out from the other side of the mesh, so I'm hoping that with more up close and personal encounters, Hannah and Jake (the two who don't get along with our three) will eventually cool it with the bad catitude toward our three. :-)
Here's a link to a slideshow of some of the journey: http://www.videosprout.com/video?id=608107cb-0835-4984-f018-0000d7d43df9
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